Valentine’s Day Cooking the Perfect Steak

What can be more romantic on Valentine’s Day than to cook and share a delicious steak with your partner, served with a rich buttery Bearnaise Sauce, some thick cut chips, and a crisp green salad? Here are the steps you need to prepare a fabulous steak just like a professional grill chef.

Cooking Steaks

How you like your steak is very subjective and in a professional kitchen, you often get cooking descriptions that can be convoluted and incredibly detailed. Chefs gauge the thickness and weight of the piece of meat, the type of cut, the cooking technique and the provenance of beef when cooking and often access the stages by gently touching and feeling the give in the meat and using their experience as a guide. A good grill chef is a very valuable member of the kitchen.

Beef and Vegetable Pasty

A proper pasty is considered to contain beef, sliced potato, onion, and swede. The ingredients are sealed in the pastry with plenty of black pepper and cooked from raw.

Braised Beef and Red Wine Pie

Shin is an inexpensive cut of meat, which is big on flavour, and is full of gelatinous sinew which cooks down to make the most excellent gravy. It is easy to stew, you can also cook in the oven at around 350 F / 180 C / Gas mark 4 and it really lends itself to batch cooking in the pressure cooker and freezing down until required. You can substitute the red wine for a strong tasting beer for beef and ale pie and adapt the recipe further adding chestnut mushrooms, sautéd kidneys or if you are feeling indulgent a dozen oysters just before you finish cooking.